Jerkatorium

Thursday, April 27, 2017

As I'd mentioned in the last two posts, Jerkatorium is competing in Nur Ein this year. Much like Song Fight, Nur Ein assigns a title for all competitors. Nur Ein goes a couple of extra steps by imposing an extra non-optional challenge or constraint on each assignment, and by having a 7-day deadline (which is tougher than Song Fight's 10-day deadline). Another difference is that Song Fight competitors win if they get the most votes from the public, while Nur Ein is an elimination competition decided by a pre-selected panel of 5 judges.

So far we have done pretty well. Our first entry was in a 4-way tie for 8th place (out of 20 bands) for the "Fingers Crossed" title, which had the added requirement of including some backwards singing or instrumentation in the song. We did even better with our third-place showing for the "After You" title, which had the added requirement of a countermelody.

This song is just acoustic guitar and voice, which is a bit of a departure from our typical style. Other than the vocal layering, this is a "no-frills" effort from us. A couple hours prior to submission Chumpy found a neat new trick in Logic Pro X that helped us clean up the song, and we were at it right up until the deadline. There are some timing issues during the second verse that I'm sure we would have noticed and cleaned up prior to submission if we'd had more time and fresh ears, but I'm still very happy with how it turned out. The lyrics are darker than usual, but with title like "Ocean Of Blood" you'd have to expect some darkness.

I might post another update as soon as tomorrow, depending on how soon the Nur Ein songs are posted. Jerkatorium is on track to submit our song for the "Fingers Crossed" round today.

I do not like to update this blog without pictures, so here is a photo of the sunset I took from the plane to Sacramento on January 9. It's a pretty photo except for the scratches on the window. It has nothing to do with Jerkatorium music, but here it is anyway:

We have another new song coming out soon for the "Ocean Of Blood" Song Fight, and I will update this blog as soon as those songs are posted.

In other news, Jerkatorium is competing in Nur Ein this year, which means at least one new song every week from now until we get eliminated from the competition. Nur Ein is different than Song Fight because it's an elimination competition (like oh so many reality TV competition shows), and there is a set panel of judges instead of voting from the general public. It started yesterday and lasts until June 5, so there should be new Jerkatorium songs posted every week until we lose. I will post regular updates and links to the songs on this blog.